While last week’s Arrow could have worked as an incredible season finale, it was actually just the incredible penultimate episode. But don't worry, because Wednesday’s epic Season 1 finale, titled "Sacrifice," ups the ante and executive producer Marc Guggenheim warns fans that no one is safe.
Now that Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman) has the Markov device – and killed anyone who could possibly blow the whistle on his plans to level The Glades and blame it on an earthquake – will he succeed in beginning The Undertaking?
"Malcolm has everything he needs now. He definitely is ready to start The Undertaking," Guggenheim tells Hollywood.com. "He may not have all the people that he wants on his side, but he has all the resources that he needs. And the people on his side… well, that math will certainly change by the end of the finale." Does that mean his son Tommy (Colin Donnell) will finally and officially join the dark side? It would certainly not be that far-fetched, after he just watched his ex-best friend Oliver (Stephen Amell) getting hot and heavy with his ex-girlfriend Laurel (Katie Cassidy) through the window of her apartment.
One character we’re extremely worried for is everyone’s favorite IT girl, Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards). At the end of last week’s episode, "Darkness on the Edge of Town," Det. Lance (Paul Blackthorne) zeroed in on her in his investigation of the Dark Archer and the vigilante. "We will totally understand because of the events in Episode 22 why Lance is investing in Felicity in 23. The repercussions are pretty huge," Guggenheim reveals. "The theme of the finale is sacrifice, and the Felicity/Lance interaction leads Lance to make a rather large sacrifice."
It sounds like we should be less worried for Felicity and more worried for Det. Lance! But he isn’t the only one making a sacrifice in the finale. "All the characters in the episode each either give up something or are forced to confront giving up something," Guggenheim teases. "I think that’s true for just about every character in the show. But the one that Lance makes is pretty significant." Could Lance be the big death we’ve been warned about? We’ll have to wait until the final minutes of the finale to be sure.
One story line that won’t be revisited in "Sacrifice," however, is Diggle’s (David Ramsey) hunt for Floyd Lawtin, better known as Deadshot. "Unfortunately, that got put on the back burner. It was something we talked about resolving in the end of the season and the truth is we just had so much other story to tell," Guggenheim explains. "We decided that rather than try and burn through it and short change it, we put it on the back burner and we’re bringing it back in Season 2. We actually have a really cool storyline involving Dig and Deadshot which offers a lot of twists and turns, and it will actually fit in better with the themes that we’re playing with in Season 2 than it would have if we had tried to wedge it in to Season 1." As if we didn’t have enough to look forward to in Arrow Season 2 already!
The Arrow Season 1 finale airs Wednesday at 8 PM ET/PT on The CW.
Follow Sydney on Twitter: @SydneyBucksbaum
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We’ve seen many different sides to Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) on Arrow. His island self: a scared, reformed party boy in over his head trying to survive in a nightmare situation. His post-island self: a tough, brutal warrior trying to clean up Starling City by taking down the corrupt and evil. His post-island façade: the face he shows his family and the public, a light, happy-go-lucky party boy with a darker edge. And now Oliver is about to show us a new, never-before-seen side: his pre-island self.
In this hot new clip of Thursday’s episode, "The Undertaking," we see just how much of a douche pre-island Oliver was… not that we didn’t already have an inkling. This is a guy who cheated on his girlfriend, Laurel (Katie Cassidy) with her sister, Sarah, which led to said sister’s death. Check out just how much pre-island Oliver sucked as he kisses Laurel goodbye — while Sarah sneaks on board the fateful yacht that will spark the events of The CW’s newest hit show.
Watching Moira (Susanna Thompson) try to talk Oliver out of leaving with his father Robert (Jamey Sheridan) in the flashback makes us wonder: Did Moira know about the Queen’s Gambit shipwreck before the Queen men set sail? We know she knew about the tampered boat after the fact, but would she really have let her son go if she knew he wouldn’t return? Or is Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman) the real culprit behind the shipwreck? In the episode, Malcolm also reveals to Robert painful details surrounding his wife's murder, and how that shaped his plans for the Glades… meaning we will finally learn the details of his mysterious Undertaking scheme.
As if that wasn’t enough drama to keep you hooked, Thursday’s new episode also has Oliver finding it difficult to mend fences with Tommy (Colin Donnell) and Diggle (David Ramsey), so he instead focuses on crossing another name off the list. While digging through a crooked accountant's laptop, Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) discovers a transaction that could help Oliver find Walter. To reconfirm the lead, Oliver gambles that Felicity can be counted on in the field for the first time. Meanwhile, Tommy stuns Laurel with the truth.
Arrow airs Wednesdays at 8 PM ET/PT on The CW.
Follow Sydney on Twitter: @SydneyBucksbaum
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We’ve been warning you for weeks that s**t’s about to get crazy on Arrow, and here's your proof! In these first look photos from the season 1 finale, "Sacrifice," we see Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman) gloating alongside a chained-up Oliver (Stephen Amell), who's been de-hooded and de-shirted. What is going on?!
Thankfully, the muscle behind the vigilante, Amell, sat down with a small group of reporters to discuss the jam-packed, intense season finale of Arrow and to shine a little light on these spoilery photos. Turns out, Oliver’s secret won’t stay a secret much longer thanks to his arch enemy, Malcolm, a.k.a. The Dark Archer.
“I start the season finale chained up and left for dead,” Amell reveals. “I am chained up by Mr. Barrowman [aka Malcolm Merlyn]. Now, in the photos he is not wearing a mask and neither am I, although I don’t ever wear a mask. Everything is out in the open between us.”
You read that right: Malcolm and Oliver will learn the truth about each other, bow-and-arrow secrets and all. Needless to say, Ollie's got different attitude toward the elder Merlyn than he did in episode 16 when he encouraged his then-best friend Tommy (Colin Donnell) to give his father a chance.
"Oliver, we saw in Episode 16, actually encouraged Tommy to develop a relationship with his father. He doesn’t know anything about Malcolm Merlyn other than maybe he could be a better dad," Amell says. "He certainly doesn’t suspect anything to the effect of him being slightly evil, let alone the other archer."
Once Oliver learns Malcolm's other identity, some major drama will go down. "I think Oliver will support [Tommy working for Malcolm] because ultimately Oliver wants Tommy to be happy and he wants him to stand on his own," Amell adds. "Should he come to learn anything about Tommy’s father, he may feel differently."
That's an understatement, and not the only drama going down in the season finale. When "Sacrifice" shoots onto our TV screens on May 15, Oliver and Diggle (David Ramsey) race to stop the Dark Archer from unleashing his vengeance on The Glades. However, they run into a road block after Detective Lance (Paul Blackthorne) picks up Felicity for questioning. Tommy and Oliver’s already tumultuous relationship takes a turn for the worse after Oliver makes a confession about Laurel (Katie Cassidy). After hearing of the danger in The Glades, Thea (Willa Holland) races to find Roy (Colton Haynes), inadvertently putting herself directly in the line of fire of Malcolm’s devious plan. On the island, Oliver, Slade (Manu Bennett) and Shado (Celina Jade) are locked in a life-or-death struggle against Fyers as his missiles lock on a full Ferris Air jetliner.
Check out two more first look photos from "Sacrifice" below:
Arrow airs on Wednesdays at 8 PM ET/PT on The CW.
Reporting by Leanne Aguilera
Follow Leanne on Twitter: @leanneaguileraFollow Sydney on Twitter: @SydneyBucksbaum
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We’ve been waiting ever-so-(im)patiently for the return of the CW’s newest hit drama Arrow to return for the last four episodes of its freshman season, and tonight we will finally be rewarded. Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) and co. are back in "Home Invasion," and our favorite hooded vigilante has got a whole mess of problems with his family, his friends, and even his colleagues on Team Arrow.
We last left off with Ollie’s sister Thea (Willa Holland) teaming up with her new boyfriend Roy Harper (Colton Haynes) to track down the Hood, Ollie's mother Moira (Susanna Thompson) caught in the nefarious plans for The Undertaking of The Glades, his best friend Tommy (Colin Donnell) allying himself with his father Malcolm (John Barrowman) — aka the Dark Archer — and his partner Diggle (David Ramsey) out for revenge, Team Arrow be damned. Honestly, with friends and family like Oliver’s, who needs enemies?
Unfortunately, Starling City’s insidious underbelly doesn’t exactly see things that way, and Oliver will have a whole new slew of enemies to try and cross off his List tonight. First and foremost, Floyd Lawton — a.k.a. Deadshot — once again rears his one-eyed head, and according to everyone’s favorite IT girl Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards), Deadshot stirs up some trouble within Team Arrow and outside of the team.
"Dun dun dun, Deadshot! There is tension that happens between Diggle and Oliver when Deadshot comes into the case because whether or not you see him in each episode, Floyd Lawton is always on Diggle’s mind 100 percent," Rickards tells Hollywood.com. "He wants to get revenge. He cannot go on living with Deadshot there. And Felicity does not want to see Diggle get lost in that."
When Oliver doesn’t exactly see eye to eye with Diggle’s "blood quest" against Lawton, it’s up to Felicity to bring her two boys back together. "I see her as the point of this triangle and she’s going, 'Okay, you guys are individuals and you need to work this out,'" Rickards reveals. "In this episode, she’s trying to fuse together again the connection between the other two points of their triangle. It gets a little rocky, for lack of a better explanation."
Maybe if Deadshot was Team Arrow’s only concern in "Home Invasion," they would actually stand a chance to really work through their issues in a timely manner. But unfortunately for Oliver, Diggle, and Felicity, they will also have to deal with a new villain that presents a challenge they’ve never faced before.
Angel alum J. August Richards makes his debut tonight as Mr. Blank, an assassin who Richards doesn’t like to define in such black-and-white terms. "You call him a villain but I don’t think he sees himself that way, nor do I see him that way," Richards tells Hollywood.com. "He sees himself as a businessman who’s been hired to do a service. And beyond that, he has no sort of judgment behind it or not. He is an assassin who is brought in to keep a few witnesses quiet and he is very serious about what he does for a living."
While any normal assassin wouldn’t present major challenges to Oliver and company, Mr. Blank has a special talent that makes Team Arrow’s job much harder than usual. "He lives his whole life to be invisible so that he can creep out of the shadows to take people out and then creep right back in," Richards reveals. "He’s not easy to track down. He’s a master of disguise without ever changing his costume. That’s how good this guy is."
And what’s scarier than his talent for disappearing is his "dead in the eyes" personality. "This character has no empathy for people at all. He might understand human emotions but he doesn’t understand yours or how you’re feeling. That doesn’t even cross his radar," Richards explains. "However, he is one of those people that can read the emotional temperature of a room easily. He is very connected to spaces and the emotional temperature of rooms, but not to people at all. I call him a sociopathic Nate Berkus."
With his sociopathic nature and penchant for hiding, it sounds like Mr. Blank will present challenges both to Oliver and Felicity. "He’s a villain like I don’t think we have ever seen before," Richards teases. "He creeps in and out of places innocuously and I think that makes it very difficult for Oliver to spot him. And who says that Oliver does stop him?"
On that ominious note, we’re left to wonder if we’ll see more of Richards’ Mr. Blank in the future… perhaps Season 2? "I don’t know [about being back]. I think we’ll have to wait and see," Richards teases. "But I will say this: I had an absolute ball working on the show. I love the crew, the cast, and it was an amazing experience."
One character we know for sure we’ll be seeing more of is Felicity, thanks to her promotion to series regular. Rickards was "elated" when she heard the news she would be sticking around Arrow in a larger capacity. "It’s huge news for me and for Felicity. I get to spend more time with her and more time with this awesome cast that I’ve become really good friends with," Rickards says. "If I had to say goodbye to Felicity that would be heartbreaking."
Saying goodbye to Felicity would be heartbreaking for fans as well, thanks to the dedicated army of "Olicity" shippers hoping to see Oliver and Felicity get together romantically. "She’s got this hunk of a superhero on her hands. That’s kind of the dream," Rickards says. "I think what the audience really loves is the tension. Felicity does too. That’s a natural thing for her. But I don’t know, I’m not the writers! I don’t even think they know where it’s going to go. They just burn through storyline like crazy."
While Rickards may not be able to predict if/when Olicity might happen, she does understand the why fans are so connected to the pairing of Oliver and Felicity. "I think what we do get to see is her admiration for Oliver and his admiration for her and their love for each other," Rickards explains. "The more you get to know someone on that level, the more connected you are to them. And the friendship keeps growing, that family-like feeling, that love-like feeling between her and Diggle, her and Oliver, and Oliver and Diggle."
Tune in to see that friendship between Oliver, Diggle, and Felicity tested when Deadshot and Mr. Blank enter the scene on Arrow tonight at 8 PM ET/PT on The CW.
Follow Sydney on Twitter: @SydneyBucksbaum
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They Tried To Make Her Go To Rehab: And Lindsay Lohan will go go go, just not before shooting her guest stint on Charlie Sheen's FX comedy Anger Management. The permanently troubled actress was just sentenced to 90 days in rehab, but first she'll be allowed to shoot her previously booked guest spot — as a patient who romances Sheen — in April. Celebrities — just like us! [EW]
ABC Announces Summer Line-Up: They announced their spring finale schedule yesterday, so ABC satiated our need for constant entertainment today by releasing their summer schedule. Wipeout will return May 9, The Bachelorette May 20, new series Motive on May 21, Rookie Blue on May 23, Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition on May 28, What Would You Do? on May 29, Mistresses on June 3, and Celebrity Wife Swap and Whodunnit? (another newbie) on June 23. [Via Release]
Emily Owens Returns: ... To another show. Mamie Gummer, a.k.a. Meryl Streep's daughter, just booked a role opposite Rainn Wilson on CBS' comedy pilot Backstrom. Gummer will play the female lead — Nicole Carlton, a police detective who is also a lesbian. [TVLine]
So Necessary: David Anders, who plays Dr. Frankenstein on ABC's Once Upon a Time (and the not-so-dearly departed Uncle John on The Vampire Diaries), has just booked a recurring guest role on USA's Necessary Roughness. He'll play Troy Cutler, the second-in-command to John Stamos' sports and talent agency honcho Connor. What a horifically unattractive group of people that show is hiring, let us take pity on those poor casting directors. [Via release]
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[Photo Credit: Photo Credit: Diane Cohen/WENN]
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All right, by show of hands, who else totally thought McKenna Hall wasn’t making it out of tonight’s Arrow alive? Yeah, I was one hundred percent convinced tonight would be the last we saw Oliver’s cop girlfriend. I was right, of course, but not in the way I thought. Here’s my thought process: Oliver and McKenna were happy, and they were making their relationship work. They’d been going out for two months now, slept together, and really worked as a couple – despite McKenna’s being on the task force hunting Oliver’s secret identity, of course. But they were doing good! So, natch, things were about to get ugly.
But let’s back up a bit. First of all, I could hardly contain my glee when the previously on segment started. It’s been too long without a new Arrow for my liking, so I am so amped that we are about to get seven weeks straight of all-new episodes, kicking it off tonight with “The Huntress Returns.” There was a severe lack of salmon ladder for my taste, though. Other than that, tonight’s Arrow was stellar (check out my post mortem with the cast and producers here).
The title doesn’t lie: Helena Bertinelli is back, and she’s still on the warpath to find and kill her father (who, if you don’t remember, killed her fiancé). Since she’s been having difficulty getting to him in prison, she’s been killing off his employees to try to find a way to get to him. Thanks to her father’s attorney (RIP dude who I didn’t even bother to remember your name! Sorry ‘bout it!), she figured out a chance to kill him: take him out during his transfer from prison to witness protection. This would be her one and only chance to get to him, since he cut a deal and was giving up names to disappear into witness protection for the rest of his life.
She couldn’t do this alone, though, so she turned to the only other person she knew who could help her: her ex, Oliver. When her feminine wiles didn’t convince him to help her kill her father, she relied on the next best thing: threatening his family. Baaaaad move, honey. The pure rage on Oliver’s face should have been warning enough to turn tail and run.
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But before he could deal with Helena, Oliver had to focus on the opening of his nightclub. That’s right, Verdant is live! Kicking off the debut, Oliver got electronic dance music superstar Steve Aoki to play – since apparently Oliver dated his sister back in the day, ha! – but Oliver still hasn’t gotten the chance to talk with Tommy since he found out Oliver was the vigilante. Oliver seems happy that he can finally explain how and why he does what he does, but Tommy is having none of it. Not only can he not forgive Oliver lying to him, but the fact that he’s a murderer just isn’t flying. Tommy may be a playboy, a rich kid who only recently had to grow up and learn responsibility, but he’s a truly good person. Any explanation won’t matter to Tommy: “What’s the point? I wouldn’t believe a word of it anyway.” Ouch. This friendship is not in a good place.
They put their differences aside for the opening of Verdant, though, and damn did they do a good job! That is one club I’d definitely frequent. Aoki’s killing it, Oliver’s family and girlfriend are all in attendance to show support, Moira is wondering what the hell kind of music is playing, Thea is drinking underage… it’s a party!
So of course Helena decides to push Oliver even further by crashing the party and taking Tommy hostage in the secret Team Arrow lair underneath Verdant (surprise, Tommy! More secrets right underneath your nose!) and threatening to break his arm unless Oliver agreed to help her. This is where I truly felt bad for Tommy. The poor guy has never had to endure any real physical work or pain in his life, and he was in agony. When Helena finally let him go after Oliver agreed to help her, he just curled in a ball in pain. He’s only known Ollie’s secret for a short time and immediately he’s in danger.
Now that Oliver reluctantly is helping Helena find and kill her father, they agree to catching him on the road, but there are two identical vans leaving the safe house – one’s a decoy. Oliver’s van was the decoy, and Helena is triumphant when she stops her van, but it turns out it was a police setup! She is pissed, and no doubt thinks Oliver set her up.
Just when we thought Helena was going to give up Oliver’s name to the police, she just goads McKenna and Det. Lance until Oliver stages a rescue and gets her out of the police station. He thinks he’s convinced her to leave town, but unfortunately for Felicity Smoake, that’s not the case. Helena threatens Felicity until she hacks into the FBI database and gives Helena her father’s location.
When Felicity called Diggle and Oliver after Helena left, they came racing over (though after Oliver got some sexytime in with McKenna), and I absolutely loved how protective they are of her. They both rushed in, weapons blazing, eyes wide to save her. That literally warmed my heart and made me smile. They really care about her!
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Oliver knows now that the only way to stop Helena is to kill her. He rushes over to Helena’s father’s safe house, and stops her from killing him. He shoots an arrow at her, and if she hadn’t jumped out of the way so fast she would have died. That’s when she realizes Oliver means business, and all bets are off. They fight, and Oliver gains the upper hand. But before he can get off another shot, McKenna bursts onto the scene, and this is when I knew something bad was going to happen. Helena grabs a gun and shoots McKenna!
I thought McKenna was dead, but turns out Helena only shot her femur. She’s still alive, but her leg will take a year to recover with intense physical therapy. She’s moving to Coast City to live with her sister in the meantime, since Coast City apparently has the best physical therapy program. Oliver wants to do long distance but McKenna is done. She breaks up with Oliver, and that is the last we’ll see of McKenna Hall. I’m sad to see her go, since she really brought light into Ollie’s dark life, but at least she made it out alive! Silver lining.
Another semi-good thing to come out of tonight’s episode is that Tommy is starting to understand Oliver a little better. After lying to Laurel all episode about why he was acting so distant (and why his arm was in a cast after his run-in with The Huntress), he gained some insight into how hard Oliver’s double life truly is. Tommy is ready to listen to Oliver, but he doesn’t like or agree with what Oliver is saying. Oliver knows he’ll never be happy if he’s alone, but he thinks his happiness isn’t what’s important right now. We don’t agree with that, Ollie! All we want is to see you smile!
Meanwhile, Thea tried to get her friend Roy Harper a valet job at Verdant, but I agree with Roy: giving him the keys to stranger’s nice cars is maybe not the greatest idea. I mean, Thea did meet him after he tried to steal her purse, so… there’s that. But she gets Tommy to hire Roy anyway and is bummed when he doesn’t show up for his first day. When she goes to The Glades to confront him, she gets mugged and Roy saves her! This boy has got some serious moves. I think we might be seeing a little preview of his journey, since in the comics, Roy Harper is the Green Arrow’s sidekick. Another preview we may have seen: since Roy got stabbed, Thea took him to the hospital to get stitches and he freaked out when he saw a needle. In the comics, Roy Harper suffered through a major heroin addiction. Uh oh… In the meantime, Thea distracted him from the big, scary needle with a hot, surprising kiss. That would certainly take his mind off it!
The Lances were having their own family drama tonight as well. Dinah Lance was still around after dropping her bombshell at the end of “Dead to Rights” – you know, that Laurel’s sister Sarah was still alive – and Laurel and Dinah ambushed Det. Lance with that story. I felt so bad for him in this scene. He had just spent two months getting the silent treatment from his daughter, and he thought she wanted to meet to forgive him. He apologized for using Laurel to get to the vigilante, and you could tell he was speaking from his heart. He truly meant what he said and really missed his daughter. But when his ex-wife came out of nowhere and he found out the real reason why they were there, he was just heartbroken. He didn’t want to live through losing his daughter yet again. He didn’t want to get up hope. They don’t even have any real proof, just an idea that Sarah could have been marooned on another island like Oliver was, plus a picture with the face obscured that a tourist took. Not much to go on, but Det. Lance relented by the end of the episode. The Lances are going to search for Sarah.
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And in this week’s island flashbacks, Oliver began to truly impress Slade Wilson with his ideas and bravery. They decide to blow up the big missile launcher that Fyres has to prevent a war, but Oliver gets an idea to steal the launcher’s circuit board instead. That way, the launcher won’t work, and they can negotiate a trade: the circuit board for a way off the island. It will be interesting to see how this plays out (and when we'll meet our newest island ally) but I am definitely enjoying watching Oliver grow a spine and start to become the Arrow we know now.
The best quotes from tonight's “The Huntress Returns:”
Det. Lance: “You are quite the hunter, Ms. Bertinelli. Well, I guess I should make that ‘huntress.’”
Slade, about the missile launcher: “We need to find out what Fyres is planning.”Oliver: “Wild guess? He’s planning on blowing something up.”
Det. Lance, about The Huntress: “I’m busy. The Hood’s girlfriend’s back.”
Server at Verdant, just as Oliver was about to join McKenna on the dance floor: “Sorry to bother you, Mr. Queen.”Oliver: “You’re timing’s perfect, I can’t dance.”
Diggle, about Oliver killing The Huntress: “I think you would’ve killed her a long time ago if she looked like me instead of the T Mobile girl.”
Follow Sydney on Twitter: @SydneyBucksbaum
[Photo Credit: The CW]
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The long wait for a new episode of Arrow? Totally worth it — thanks to tonight's explosive, crazy, action-packed installment, "The Huntress Returns." We’ve got six more episodes left of the wildly-successful Season 1, and if you thought the action was going to slow down, you clearly don’t watch enough Arrow.
"It's all going to come to a head," executive producer Andrew Kreisberg promises Hollywood.com. "Everything that you could want to happen and everything you think couldn’t possibly happen is going to happen. We just pitched it to the studio and the network and they’re still trying to pick their jaws up off the floor." As if we weren't already incredibly excited about the last third of Season 1.
In order to prepare for what is sure to be an epic ending to the freshman season, we spoke to the cast and producers about what to expect in the next six episodes. Here's what is on deck for Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell), Team Arrow, and all our favorite Starling City residents as we gear up for a shocking season finale:
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Tommy’s In TroubleEver since Tommy (Colin Donnell) learned the truth about both his best friend and his father, he’s struggled with this new knowledge, and that won’t end anytime soon. "He’s not doing so well, honestly. Everything’s been thrown into total turmoil for him," Donnell tells Hollywood.com. "You can see the strain on the relationship between Oliver and Tommy. It puts everything into question for him."
Knowing Oliver’s secret also creates some trouble in paradise for Tommy and Laurel’s relationship, which we began to see in tonight's episode. "It doesn't make his relationship with Laurel any easier, and the fact is it wasn't terribly easy to begin with," Donnell states. "We saw from her side that interacting with the vigilante and keeping it a secret from me already placed this strain on our relationship, and now there's another big secret. They've had such an open, very adult, honest relationship and now there’s a huge secret that has to be kept. And that's not good."
Aside from his relationship with Laurel, Tommy’s friendship with Oliver is also in a very bad place. "Oliver is a killer now which, obviously, that's an issue for Tommy. Part of the strain that is on the relationship is because of what Oliver has become," Donnell explains. "But it's equal parts feeling betrayed as a friend and a brother and a confidante. Oliver was the one person that Tommy always went to for advice. Tommy always thought that Oliver would be there for him, and all of a sudden that’s not the case."
And to find out that not only is your best friend a killer, but also your father? That would certainly throw a wrench into Tommy's newly-mended relationship with father Malcolm (John Barrowman) … or so one would think. "Tommy's pretty good at forgetting that people kill in front of him. The fact that there is a relationship again between Tommy and Malcolm kind of overshadows the fact that he saw his father doing what he did," Donnell says. "He's so consumed by almost losing his father, having him come back to life, and having him come back into his life. It is such a huge, good thing that it sort of overshadows what he saw Malcolm do."
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Malcolm’s Mysterious MentorWe haven’t heard much about Malcolm Merlyn's years in Nanda Parbot — outside of the fact that he left after his wife's murder, learned how to fight from a mysterious mentor, and returned cold and distant towards his son. This sounded suspiciously like Yao Fei's mentorship to Oliver on the island, but when I brought up my hypothesis to executive producer Marc Guggenheim he – very gently but officially – shot it down.
"We made a concrete decision in the first year not to tie the island mythology in with the present day mythology. We felt like that would be a little too coincidental," Guggenheim explains. "It's a good pitch, but no. The person who trained Malcolm, [the executive producers] know who that is, but you haven't met them yet. And you may not meet them for the first two seasons of the show."
While he didn't give away much in terms of spoilers, Guggenheim did reveal if/when we will learn more about the identity of Malcolm's mentor and his years in Nanda Parbot. "It will be an ongoing mystery as to what happened in Nanda Parbot with Malcolm. We want to continue to delve into Malcolm's back story because I think people are interested in it and John Barrowman is a wonderful actor," Guggenheim says. "So assuming Malcolm survives Season one, we'll continue to explore what happened to him during those two years."
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Dark Days Ahead (and Behind) For DiggleDiggle (David Ramsey) may be the moral center of Team Arrow, but all that is about to change, thanks to the realization that Deadshot, aka the man who killed Diggle’s brother, is still alive. "Diggle is going to get on a blood quest. We haven't really seen Diggle like this before," Ramsey tells Hollywood.com. "Up until now Diggle has been the voice of reason and the moral authority, and he's been leading the hero to have a greater sense of morality in terms of killing. But all of that goes out the door for Diggle when he learns that Deadshot’s alive. He has to hear his own words regurgitated to him, in terms of is he making the right choices, is he making the right decision, et cetera. And there will be collateral damage for that quest."
Along with his darker future, we will also learn some shocking things about Diggle's past. "You're going to see some of his other past come up and Diggle isn't as straight and clean as we all think," Ramsey reveals. "There's a history there and we’re going to see some of it."
More Slade WilsonA huge congratulations is in order for the newly-promoted series regular Manu Bennett as island badass Slade Wilson. Bennett's news joins the already announced series regular promotions of Emily Bett Rickards as Felicity Smoake and Colton Haynes as Roy Harper. Clearly, the Arrow bosses listen to what the fans want, because we just can't get enough of Slade, Felicity, and Roy!
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[Photo Credit: Jack Rowand/The CW]
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Tony Scott has signed up to direct the upcoming drug drama Narco Sub.
The film, written by David Guggenheim, focuses on the ways in which South American drug cartels smuggle cocaine into the United States ... underwater.
It won't be the first such film for Scott, who famously ventured underwater with 1995's Crimson Tide. Ridley Scott's brother most recently helmed last year's Unstoppable, and was in August in talks to remake The Wild Bunch.
Source: Variety, The Playlist

Deadline.com reports that Summit Entertainment is in talks to hire McG (Terminator Salvation) to direct Puzzle Palace, a cop drama penned by David Guggenheim. McG recently finished lensing This Means War, a rom-com starring Chris Pine and Tom Hardy as CIA agents who compete for the same girl (Reese Witherspoon), which opens February 17, 2012. He had been slated to direct Ouija next, but Universal's recent abandonment of the Hasbro board-game adaptation has left the project in limbo. No word yet on when Puzzle Palace plans to start production.
Source: Deadline.com
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